And to add little bit to the story -- Apple has also forced it's partners (not just Adobe) to go through 3 MAJOR framework/architecture changes since they released OSX only over 10 years ago. First there was Aqua, then Carbon, then Cocoa. And it's not like Microsoft which doesn't really force you to use their frameworks (like .NET); Apple actually depreciates support for their older frameworks as time marches forward. Try running a legacy app written for Mac OSX 10.1 on Snow Leopard or Lion, or Mountain Lion.
If you've ever tried developing for Apple, the change from Carbon to Cocoa was a HUGE change. Thousands of APIs changed, and they completely re-worked how you accessed certain bits of hardware. While under the hood Apple was doing this to support new processor architectures, they paid no attention to legacy software. Apple was constantly berating Adobe for not upgrading all of their apps fast enough to Cocoa, when Adobe was able to do it in a single release (this is why many of the CS4 apps didn't get many new features -- they had to basically rewrite the UI for them for the Mac). The funny story is that some of Apple's own popular programs (like FCP and iTunes) didn't get upgraded to Cocoa until much, much later than Adobe's products (both FCP and iTunes got updated in the middle of last year, with FCP having to drop a ton of features to be able to ship in time). Additionally, Apple has been locking down more and of the raw APIs that developers need to make great programs. APIs that allow developers (and partners like Adobe) to access the GPU to speed up video playback for example, are exclusive to Apple. There was a huge breakthrough about a year ago when Apple opened up a single API that allowed Adobe to improve the Flash Player to do hardware accelerated video -- which dropped the CPU utilization from like 80% to 15% for HD video. It is unknown if that API will still be available in ML. So, to say the ignored development for the Flash Player is not exactlly correct -- Apple didn't really give them the options to make the same kinds of updates that were available on the Microsoft platform. And as far as Linux goes -- I've said it before and I'll say it again on this mailing list. Developing for Linux for anything other than console-based apps is a real pain in the rear. Graphics drivers are a mess (and generally unstable), the APIs are a moving target (nothing like apis that whole-sale change each year). These would be obstacles that could be gotten around if the market wasn't so small, and so adverse to paying for software (or for that manner, having something as closed-source). Take a look at the comments on the Flash Player packages -- people use them, but hate to use them because they are closed source. Just as many comments complain that Adobe should make Photoshop for Linux, but they also say that it should be OSS (free). I personally have given up making GUIs for any of my linux apps, in favor of light-weight HTML things that require the browser. Updating your app all the time because TCL changed, or gnome is no longer popular, or KDE "jumped the shark and changed everything" is not fun. Just wasn't worth it for me. Ok, enough early morning ranting ;) -Nick On Sat, Feb 25, 2012 at 8:11 AM, Jonathan Campos <jonbcam...@gmail.com>wrote: > On Sat, Feb 25, 2012 at 12:53 AM, jude <flexcapaci...@gmail.com> wrote: > > > Apple made > > many requests (complaints) for them to upgrade and provide a good > > experience for their users which they ignored. Now, years later is it the > > reason Apple's decisions on Flash? > > > > Jude, while I don't agree with the decisions that Adobe is making with it's > support of Linux I have to stop you and tell you that you are wrong and > that you've been listening to Apple's FUD. > > The real story behind the "poor sweet Apple company that kindly asked for a > intel supporting CS upgrade" is that the day before Adobe released the new > version of CS - a date that they had been very open with for a long time > with partners such as Apple, Apple announced the new version of their > hardware. Obviously the decision to switch core architecture had been made > long ago but the decision was never shared with Adobe beyond many of > Adobe's requests to ensure that their software was prepared to work on > Apple's hardware. > > Apple is notorious for not releasing information to partners until it goes > out to the world, then all the partners have to play catchup. > > So rather than giving Adobe a heads up so that they could plan for the > change well in advance, they sprung the trap the day before the release. > This sort of announcement is meant to screw with a company because Apple is > well aware of Adobe's release cycle and how long it would take to upgrade > Adobe's applications to work with the new hardware. > > Now Apple has roughly a year to (very publicly) complain that Adobe isn't > fast enough or accommodating and should "just upgrade their software". We > as developers know this isn't an overnight job, especially for something as > full as Creative Suite. > > No Jude, I'm sorry to say that you listened to the Apple narrative without > all the facts. In this case Apple was able to have their cake and eat it > to. > > As you know, as scheduled, in the next release cycle (and even earlier for > some applications) Adobe worked to make their applications compatible for > the new hardware. However the straw man that Apple set up was already done > and Apple was able to make Adobe look bad. > > Apple only "repeatedly asked for Adobe to upgrade" after the damage was > done rather than gave Adobe the heads up to plan and release on time. > > -- > Jonathan Campos >
